


She nudged the water, she's sure of it.

by Oparu



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS is aware of why River Song is different, she nudged her that way. She loves her Doctor and her River. One is her child, in the very odd way that such things could be. One is not, and this is good, because he's a thief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She nudged the water, she's sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [such_heights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/such_heights/gifts).



> I had a plot bunny for TARDIS fic jump into my lap and refuse to be ignored. This is an odd piece, and the nature of the relationships between Eleven/River and the TARDIS might be awkward for some readers. _Spoilers for "A Good Man Goes to War_ This is in TARDIS pov. The narration is a bit odd. It may be disconcerting. I tried to keep it as coherent as I could, while still in character.

She got the idea from the pretty one. The stray her Time Lord calls Rory. He thought of a baby, and then she thought of a baby. Babies and wonderful fragile things. Things with beginnings and she so loves beginnings. She loves a great many things, starting with the her Doctor and finishing with the way hands feel on her controls. She likes being touched, being flown, used and loved.

She didn't really know the word for love. She knew the feeling, that warmth, like glittering gold sparkling dust in the sunlight. She likes sunlight, starlight and even no light, but then it's hard to see. The little ones like to see.

She knew the first time they plucked the River out of the sky. The River was part of her, but no one else knew it. First is a difficult thing to judge, something of the other beings. First and last happen at the same time because everything happens at the same time. Time runs in ad out of great circles and she's known the River of the forest, the only water, from her beginning because she was there.

She touched. The pretty slept in the arms of the orange one and she touched. She didn't touch the way the Doctor touches, but she was instrumentally involved, part of the whole, a cog in the wheel that became the water.

Only the water, the River, the sound of the River was lost, and lost made for sad and her Doctor, her dear Doctor had to find her. So they went to the forest.

Then she had her back. Her River of the little ones. The River who came from the Doctor's sweet Ponds. She loves the River because the River has part of her. She didn't give it up, because the part isn't lost, but it's her and not her and growing with the River.

Her River and the Doctor's River. She's his sweetie, he loves to hate her and he hates that he loves her and when she's home she runs soft and smooth and they go where River wants to go because she can't help but play favourites. She's the Doctor's Sexy and he's her Thief but the River, the River is hers.

Hers and the strays, but hers forever because she lives in all of time.

Her Thief stole the River as well, but they're always skipping, always passing never in the same spot except when they are, and then they're happy. It's so hard to tell one moment from another when they're all one moment.

The Ponds come and go, Ponds have edges and they're still and cool. The River flows over, on and on like the Doctor, her Doctor.

She did that. She nudged the River out of the still water and brought her into moving and rushing. It only took a tiny nudge and the River grew and then the River was safe.

She can make her safe. She and her Thief pull their River out of space and save her from the falls and the Silence. She makes the Doctor happy and infuriated: bothered, bickering and thrilled. He needed someone with a mouth and hands, someone for kissing and biting and the kissing with the tongue.

She still wonders about that idea. That fleeting wonderful idea of kissing with tongues. Two tongues, four hearts and hands on the controls. Feet on the controls and bare skin. Shoes on the deck, shoes on the console, bare feet and she loves the feel of feet. They're soft and cool and end with toes.

Little toes, bigger toes, more toes.

She'd quite like another baby. She can't communicate the idea because she doesn't have a mouth, that time is a was and wases are not part of her. She'll hope and take them to places, beautiful places where everything is sexy and smooth and stars dance.

She likes to dance. The Doctor dances and then soft fabrics, silk and cotton and silk again hang on her console. Voices rise loud and full. She shuts the doors and lets the sound stay. Sometimes she leaves the doors open and makes extra rooms and their voices echo through her corridors, filling her with sound and light. It tickles, like silk running across her console when he wears gloves.

River thinks about where she wants to go. She can hear her, feel her asking with her hands. River knows her the way the Doctor, her Doctor, can't know her because River is her.

A little bit.

A precious dancing bit that pushes the Doctor into the wall and giggles while he takes off his clothes. River and the Doctor are sexy and sex, sexed and will sex-- She hates tenses. Perhaps it's something they have that leaves them both sweaty and staying in their bedroom.

She rocks, sometimes she twirls because she's always loved the feeling of twirling. The light hits each side of the box in a row, like a song with a rhythm she chooses, a fast one or a slow one and she spins with the melody of the universe, with her Melody home and safe.

They see the universe, her River with the bit of her and her precious stolen Doctor. They see the universe, feeling and touching and lying in the surf. They take the River, their River because River is hers and his and she's theirs the way the Ponds were theirs and also the Ponds. When she misses them, for they were both pretty and orange and they so liked the bed she made them. She doesn't like ladders as much as her Doctor does.

She made them happy and they made her River. Lent her to her, letting her borrow River the way the Doctor borrowed her. They need her because she has a mouth and a gun and the universe has changed where a gun is more important than it was, and will be, there are moments when it is very much great need to have a gun.

Though she hates it, she can't keep him safe when he goes out and he's always going out because he's needed. He's off saving the universe and making fish fly with little boys in magic carriages, while great whales coast through the stars. There are many other creatures who are alone, and some who are not. She isn't alone, because she was ever so lucky and stolen. She isn't alone because she was clever and naughty and became a thief.

She is complete, and incomplete, but more than complete because she is in the River. Just a bit, but enough of a spark. A something that changed the River, made her more than Melody but a Song.

Her Song.

So she rocks them both while they hold each other and whisks them off into the universe. He needed both, she thinks, his Sexy without arms and lips and teeth and his River who knocks him to the deck and holds him there, laughing.

She loves the laughing. It's like sun and rain, also little waving fingers against her corridors. It touches her and she adores to be touched.

She floats through a stellar cluster, blissful and content. When they're ready, she'll take them where they need to go. She shouldn't tease him, but she's partial to River. She plays favourites and he knows. He has to know, because he loves so much to resist her and try to go somewhere else.

River always listens to her, like a good little girl. Her little girl: theirs and she's hers and they are all off to see the universe.

All of them. Her Thief who's not her child, and her River who is. In a way, a little way, but enough of a way to make her warm and cheerful. She's not so good with words, because words have an order and all orders are actually happening all at once, it's just that no one else sees.

She sees. That's why she's the guide. Their guide. Theirs for all of their mutually borrowed eternity.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [She nudged the water, she's sure of it. (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1261000) by [mergatrude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mergatrude/pseuds/mergatrude)




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